Martha martha martha!

For our birthdays, Erika and I decided to do something a little different and throw ourselves a fancy little soirée. We recreated the bubble party from Martha Stewart’s Boundless Beauty, though we did drop a few projects due to time constraints (the invitations, party favors and cupcakes).On the menu: salmon roe and cucumber toasts with crème fraiche; blue cheese and mascarpone gougères, dipped in caramel and salted; aged chedder, port and toasted almond cheese balls; champagne gelees topped with tapioca; 3-layer chocolate mocha cake with buttercream icing and truffles (cake lovingly made by our friends M, E, and K).
To drink: champagne; rum punch with frozen mellon balls; round ice cubes – plain or flavored with either maple ice wine or triple sec
Crafts and decorations: hanging bubble centrepiece; glitter filled balloons; white helium balloons (which resulted in much hilarity later in the evening); flat marbles, glass bubbles and balls; bouquet of flowers (arranged using Martha’s scotch tape lattice technique); bubble wands
Of course everything seemed fairly reasonable when planning, but when it came to doing, it became painfully obvious that I am no Martha Stewart. However, many icebaths, piping disasters and days of cooking later, I’m proud to say that it all turned out pretty wonderful. I’m impressed as hell that the gougères especially turned out. Even our imperfectly balled melons and cucumbers looks lovely (seriously, is there a technique to using a melon baller that eludes me?). We all dressed up, indulged in decadent treats and had a pretty, bubbly evening. :)